Snow
by The Lorelei
Summary: Yay! Chapter 9 is up (finally)! What happens in a retelling of Snow White where the dwarves aren't dwarves at all, and the prince and the magic mirror are the same person? You'll have to read to find out. =)
1. Chapter One

A/N: Good grief, I'm writing another fairy tale retelling. I get to mutilate Snow White this time. ^_^ Anyway…yeah. I was going to say something else, but I forgot what, so I'm going to stop talking now. Really.

Rosa Vela Salrali tirDelen, daughter of Lord Telor Rashma tirDelen, Lady of the tirDelen House, beloved by all who met her, at the moment had but one ambition: to get her sister Telta to shut up.

Telta Dora Liara tirDelen's voice droned on and on, pouting and whining and complaining and generally trying to make Rosa feel sorry for her. All she was succeeding in doing was making Rosa very much want to strangle her older sister.

"I really don't see what _you're_ complaining about," she snapped, turning from the bay window to glare at Telta. She had had more than enough of complaints and whining. "At least you get to get _out_ of this place."

"Oh, but I'm sure it'll be ever so horrible there," Telta whined, poking out her lower lip elegantly. "And why do I have to marry a man I've never even _seen_ before?"

Rosa brought her fist down on the edge of the table with a thud. "You're going to be a _queen_, Telta! You're marrying the King of all Torlemont! While I get to stay here and stitch embroidery and pray that I get a marriage offer _half_ as good as yours, just because I had the bad luck to be born the younger sister." Lips curling in disgust, she turned back to the window and stared out at the bay, not really seeing any of it.

"Even if he is a King, I'm sure he'll be perfectly dreadful," Telta declared, tilting her nose upwards condescendingly. Rosa firmly throttled the urge to scream in frustration.

"Who cares if he's dreadful! He's a King! And like I said, at least you can get out on your own and live your own life without Father hovering over you everywhere you go."  
Telta frowned, her desperate search for a witty comeback written all over her face. She evidently couldn't come up with one, and at last settled for, "I'm too young to get married." Heaving a dramatic sigh, she added, as though Rosa had forgotten, "I'm only eighteen, after all."

"Most other women are married with a herd of children by the time they're your age, Telta! Stop complaining. It could be worse."

"How?"

Rosa rolled her eyes in exasperation. "You could be thirteen, getting married to some old fart with hardly a title to his name who has a dozen beautiful women in and out of his bed every day."

Telta blinked, looking shocked and turning an interesting shade of red. Rosa wasn't sure if she should laugh or get even more annoyed, so she decided to do neither, instead crossing the room and taking a seat in the chair next to Telta's. "Come off it, Telta. You're not going to be a virgin much longer, you'd better get used to the idea."  
"Yes, and _you're_ not one now," Telta said boldly, raising her head to gaze calmly at Rosa. "That's the _real_ reason Father isn't marrying you off to this King, you know."

Surprisingly enough, Rosa felt her cheeks getting warm. "Don't be silly," she said nonchalantly. "Father doesn't know."

"Yes, he does. I don't know _how_ he knows, but I overheard him telling Mother that--that--well, what he actually said was that you and Prince Telmar were screwing in the garden." Her entire face turned scarlet.

Rosa firmly throttled her surprise, not willing to give Telta the satisfaction of knowing she'd been shocked. How _had_ he known about that amorous encounter, anyway? There hadn't been anyone else around in the gardens to notice them, although she hadn't been paying too much attention to their surroundings at the time...

"Anyway, I still don't know why you whine so much," she said, trying to unobtrusively change the subject. "You get to be a queen, and live in a palace, and--"

"But I don't _want_ to go!" Telta wailed, bursting into tears as their father entered the room. Rosa wondered why she even bothered; it wasn't as though a show of tears, however impressive, was going to change his mind for him.

All her complaints and whining and pouting were for naught, as Rosa had known they would be. A week later, Telta was Queen of Torlemont and living in the Palace, and whether she was happy with matters or not, no one knew except perhaps the King.

It was a full year later that Rosa first met her sister's husband.

The party was full in session, the ballroom packed so full of people that it was difficult to take a step without running into someone from behind. Everyone was busy either with dancing or with the food and drink handed out by servants in the blue livery of the Royal Palace; in one particularly disgusting example, Lord Jakel was shoveling food into his mouth so fast that his cheeks bulged, with his wife watching in annoyance as he dropped little bits of dinner on the front of his tunic.

When Rosa entered, almost everyone looked up. She drank in their gazes as a flower drinks in sunlight, basking in the warm glow of men's admiration and women's envy. She knew she looked positively ravishing; the green and silver brocade gown was the perfect thing to offset the deep red of her hair, and the sapphire brooch she wore exactly matched the shade of her eyes. She'd picked out her outfit very carefully, every inch of it designed to impress, and knew beyond a doubt how beautiful she looked. When she saw Telta, still as short and plain as ever but now fat with eight months of pregnancy, she couldn't help but feel a certain fierce joy in that knowledge--a joy that only increased when King Charlta gazed at her appreciatively, intense interest gleaming in his jade green eyes.

She gazed back at him just as boldly, looking him over and feeling an interest rise in her that more than matched his. Oh, yes, her sister's husband was certainly handsome. His silvery blonde hair was almost too long to be fashionable, but merely looked striking on him; his body was perfect in every way. His eyes held hers, drawing her in, filling her entire body with the intense heat of desire.

It was a week later that they first made love.

Rosa lay beside Charlta, their naked forms still tangled together, both of them exhausted from their recent exertions. She let her fingers run idly down his side, spreading a fire through his warm body as they went; he grunted, pulling her closer.

Smiling, she pressed her lips softly against his bare shoulder, running a hand down his back; sated though he was, she could feel his arousal at her touch. He grunted again, reaching out and playing with one of her breasts.

She laughed softly, curving her body around his and making him gasp; he pulled her against his chest, kissing her, at first gently but then with a rising passion that was close to need. She couldn't help but feel entirely satisfied, and not just because of their lovemaking; he was _hers_ now, completely and entirely. Her sister's husband, perhaps, but _her_ lover and _her _beloved...

"Aren't you ever tired?" she teased him, laughing, and then all thought became impossible for a very long time.

Telta's daughter was born the same day Rosa discovered she was pregnant.

The daughter was perfectly healthy; Telta died in childbed. Rosa certainly wouldn't miss her. They might have been sisters, but there was little love lost between the two, especially since Telta's husband had become Rosa's lover. She had lived long enough to give the girl a name; Rosa couldn't remember exactly what it was, but it was something completely idiotic that only Telta could have thought of. Snow White, or something like that. Her sister had obviously hated the child, to give the poor thing a name like that.

But little Snow White wasn't the baby Rosa was worried about. She was more concerned about the one in her own womb.

She'd had plenty of men in and out of her bed since that encounter in the gardens with Prince Telmar; a charm against pregnancy, purchased at a cheap price from a village hedgewitch, had always taken care of that possibility, at least up until now. But now, suddenly, it had failed her. Maybe the things stopped working with age, or maybe it had never really worked in the first place. Gods knew you couldn't trust anything those so-called witches in the smaller towns said.

Later that night, before she got up the nerve to tell Charlta about their child, he proposed to her.

She accepted. She wasn't an idiot.

A month later they were married. Seven months later, right on time, Rosa's child was born.

The child had Charlta's looks right from birth, with an exquisite mass of blonde fuzz atop her head and sparkling jade green eyes. She couldn't help but think it was a good thing; born seven months after their marriage as she was, her heritage might have been doubted had she not looked so much like her father.

Rosa named the child after herself; Rosa Telya Jeriria tirVardossa, younger princess of the royal family, half-sister to Telta's Snow White Harmony Grace tirVardossa. Rosa laughed every time she heard the poor child's full name; it wasn't as though naming the girl after all those virtues was going to give them to her.

That night, Charlta took her on a walk in the gardens, leaving Rosa the younger behind with a nurse. Rosa the elder protested, but he was not to be dissuaded; he practically dragged her along behind her, leaving her burning with curiosity.

Outside, she took a seat on the edge of the fountain, letting her fingers trail lazily through the water. She heard Charlta's soft footsteps behind her, and smiled in fond adoration--mixed with a healthy dose of cheerful lust, of course. She was contemplating the day when she would give her darling a son and an heir when a burning pain seared through her shoulder, and Charlta cursed.

Jerking upright, her hand flew to her shoulder and pulled the dagger free from the wound. The blade of the knife was stained red with her blood; her shoulder throbbed unbearably. Charlta snatched for it, but she jerked it from his reach.

"What is going _on?_" she hissed at him. Instead of answering, he snatched for the knife again. His hand closed around her wrist like a vise, and they wrestled fiercely for a moment before he managed to pin her down against the base of the fountain and snatch the knife from her hand.

He grabbed for her, but she jerked out of his grasp, lurching backwards and falling back into the fountain. Dress soaked--no doubt the velvet was ruined, dammit--she got to her feet, backing up against the centerpiece of the fountain, a ridiculously hideous piece depicting a nude female mermaid (complete with strategically placed tendrils of green hair).

"You're trying to _kill_ me, aren't you?" she gasped, breath making clouds in the chill autumn air as she stared at him in horror. "But _why?_"

Her instincts made a sudden leap, and without knowing how, she _knew_. "You killed Telta, too, didn't you?" she challenged, holding his gaze with her own. "You killed her when she didn't bear you a son, so you could take another wife. That was me, and now you're going to kill me too, and you'll keep marrying wife after wife until you get an heir--you _idiot!_ A woman can have more than one child, you know! And if all you want is different women in your bed, get a fucking _mistress!_"

He lurched for her, still as silent as a stone statue, grabbing her by the shoulders and wrestling with her. She struggled furiously, managing to get in a good kick in the nuts before he wrestled her to the ground. "You _bastard!_"

There was something Rosa knew, something that no one else did; her secret, which she had kept since she was twelve years old. Her mother had been of the ancient blood, possessing ancient sorcery that everyone else thought was either long forgotten or had never existed in the first place. She had passed it on to Rosa, but not to Telta; Rosa's daughter had inherited that gift, and Telta's had not.

Rosa herself had first felt in rising in her when she was twelve years old. She had never learned to master it; it followed her will, but she had no true control over it. She had killed with it once, accidentally. She hoped sincerely that Rosa the younger would learn better how to use her gift.

She felt it in her again now, a touch of power rising along with her anger. "I hope you're impotent for the rest of your life, you son of a bitch! And I hope both your daughters hate you forever!"

She screamed the words into his face, as if volume and not her sorcery would make them come true. He snarled at her, and drove the knife straight into her heart.

She never really felt the blow. The force of her magic cradled her in warm darkness and carried her towards the sky, killed by the one man who had ever possessed more than a tiny portion of her heart.


	2. Chapter Two

Rosa Telya Jeriria tirVardossa and Snow White Harmony Grace tirVardossa both grew, as is the nature of children. Rosa the elder's dying curse proved true at least in part; Charlta was unable to get a child on anyone else, no matter how hard or how often her tried.

Young Rosa's presence constantly reminded him of his late second wife, a woman he had learned to hate after he had killed her. In fury, he changed her name to Sarra, not wanting to even have to speak his wife's name aloud. The name did not stay changed for long, however.

At the age of five, she stood up at the dinner table, announcing quite proudly, "My name is not Sarra. My name is Rosa. From now on, I am going to ignore anyone who does not call me Rosa." She sat back down and calmly continued her meal--and that was that.

Her name wasn't the only thing about her mother that Rosa shared. True, she had her father's silvery blonde hair--which was almost to her knees by her twelfth birthday--and his jade green eyes, but the rest of her was entirely her mother's. Dark lashes, soft, full mouth, charming freckles, peaches and cream complexion, stubbornly pointed chin--and womanly curves that were only slightly modest, even at the age of twelve.

Snow (as Snow White insisted upon being called) proved to take after her own mother, as well. Her ebony hair she wore short--the longest it ever got before she cut it again was just touching the top of her shoulder blades. Her emerald eyes were large, frank, and honest; they looked (and were) entirely incapable of deception. She went outside constantly, and was always forgetting to wear a hat; consequently, she had a healthy tan and freckles that looked as though a painter had dipped his brush in fawn-colored paint and splattered it across her face. Her nose was too straight and too long, her ears too big, her feet far too big for the rest of her body--although her nurse said she'd grow out of that. She was almost as tall as her father, even at only thirteen.

Simply put, Rosa was beautiful, and Snow was merely pretty. The elder of the sisters _might_ become more beautiful with age, but it was highly doubted.

They both had an instinctive dislike of both their father and each other--not a result of Rosa the elder's dying curse, though, for their feeling couldn't exactly be described as active hate. It was entirely at the level of instinct; some subconscious part of their brains knew very well that he had murdered both their mothers.

Rosa was twelve--the same age her mother had been--when she discovered her powers.

The library was dark--pitch black, to tell the truth, darker than the night outside. Rosa didn't mind. Unlike Snow, she had never been afraid of the dark; her sister, on the other hand, had a completely irrational phobia when it came to darkness, and could never get to sleep unless someone left a candle lit in her room.

The candle Rosa was carrying now she shielded with her hand, so that it shone light only on her bare feet and the hem of her nightgown. She didn't want to let anyone know that she was up and about; it was well past her bedtime, and she had much past experience with Nurse's lectures on the importance of bedtimes.

Slipping into the library, she looked about her and grimaced. The huge collection of books belonged entirely to her grandfather, the thirteenth King of Torlemont; no one in the royal family had spent much time here since he had died. Consequently, everything was in disorganized disarray, and covered with several layers of dust. Snow was in the process of organizing and cataloging everything, but she had only gotten so far, and considering the size of the library, would probably never finish.

Snow was the only one that used the library anymore. She had a passion for books that Rosa would never understand, devouring them at a positively inhuman rate and immediately running back to the library for another one. Her favorites were novels and adventure stories--just another of the many things about her sister that Rosa simply couldn't comprehend. Books were fine if they were useful, but what good was a pack of lies about people that had never existed--and what was a novel but exactly that?

Rosa had a certain book in mind that she wanted to get tonight. It was a book that she had dismissed at the time, some really ancient tome that had once belonged to those of the ancient blood, the so-called sorcerers. Up until today, Rosa had been of the simple and commonly held opinion that the "sorcerers" had about as much magic as a common village hedgewitch.

But after today, she was starting to reconsider. She was even starting to think that--as radical as it sounded--she might _be_ a sorcerer of the ancient blood.

There was one of the kitchen boys who was about her age, one who everyone called Jon--and who Rosa called a gigantic annoyance. He seemed to have a positive knack for saying just the right things to infuriate her, and he _loved_ to make her angry. She'd been longing to find a way to shut him up for quite some time.

He'd been taunting her earlier this afternoon, saying how everyone had wondered when she was born if the King was really her father or not. She was born seven months after their marriage, which was far too early for the circumstances of her conception to have been socially acceptable. The only reason they had assumed she wasn't a bastard was because she looked like her father--but that wasn't really good evidence, because the only things they had in common where blonde hair and green eyes. And there were plenty of blonde-haired, green-eyed men out there, weren't there?

She had wanted very, very badly to punch him in the face. She didn't--she was a Princess, she was royalty, and there was no way she was going to soil her hands by touching someone like him, even if it was just to punch him. But, oh, she had _wanted_ to.

And then an invisible fist had punched him, right in the nose.

And Rosa had never moved an inch.

Everyone else seemed to think she had punched him, and she didn't deny it; if she told them she hadn't, they would have demanded an explanation, and she had absolutely no idea how it had happened. But she knew for a fact that she had never touched him.

However it had happened, it broke his nose and he had to be rushed off to a Healer. Oddly enough, though, with dirt on his face--as was usual--and blood streaming from his nose, he'd actually given her an admiring look before running off to the Healers.

She'd sat up after she was supposed to have gone to bed, speculating over how she'd managed to punch him without moving a muscle. Then she'd remembered something she'd heard once about the sorcerers of old--that not all of them had conscious control over their powers, and the magic just responded to their will. And she remembered how very, very badly she'd wanted to punch him before something invisible did.

And so she'd gotten up out of bed, sneaked to the library, and was looking for the book on sorcery that she'd seen the other day but had passed by.

Tiptoeing carefully along the carpeted floor of the library, she froze at the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway. Darting in between two bookshelves, she crouched on the floor and wished as hard as she could that the candle would go out.

The flame flickered and guttered for a moment, but didn't go out.

So much for her great powers of sorcery. Pinching the wick of the candle, she winced as it burned the tender pads of her fingers--but at least it got rid of the light that was sure to betray her.

The footsteps turned into the library and headed straight towards the shelves she was hiding by. She crouched, preparing to run for it, then exhaled in a sigh when she saw huge bare feet and the hem of a nightgown exactly like her own. All this worry, and just over Snow.

Stretching, she climbed to her feet. Snow might be useless for most things, but she wouldn't tell on Rosa for being up past her bedtime--especially not when she was doing the same thing.

She didn't even notice that the candle in her hand had relit itself.

Scowling, she gazed up at her sister--she hated having to gaze up at anybody, especially at Snow. The only thing she truly hated about herself was her small stature, especially since she didn't have her mother's supposed presence; everyone always said that it was a surprise to remember that Rosa the elder had been short. The force of her personality had supposedly been such that one always came away from a conversation with her thinking of her as tall.

"What are you doing out here?" she demanded of her elder sister.

Snow blinked, surprised. "I couldn't get to sleep, so I was coming to get a book and read under the covers," she defended. "I thought that maybe if I got something boring enough, it would put me to sleep. What are _you_ doing here?"

Rosa debated for an instant, then decided to tell a little white lie. She didn't want her sister knowing that she'd somehow punched a kitchen boy without moving a muscle.

"Same thing you are, actually," she lied, perfectly straight-faced. "I remembered seeing some book on the old sorcerers last time I was in here, and I figured maybe if I read something boring it would put me right to sleep. Reading always does."

"Oh." Snow shrugged, taking her story at face value, and headed past her only to pull a book off the shelves and head back out into the hallway. She paused for a moment in the doorway, whispering, "G'night," and then was on her way.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she looked toward the candle in her hand--and only then realized that it had been out, and she hadn't relit it yet. And yet there it sat, firmly clenched in her grasp, flame burning away merrily and throwing shadows around the library.

Apparently, she could only make things happen when she wasn't consciously thinking about it.

Shaking her head, she hunted through the shelves until she found the book she was looking for. Pulling it out from the shelf, she returned to her room, and crouched under the covers with her candle and her book, and read until the sun rose in the east and she had to hide both the candle and the book lest she be discovered.


	3. Chapter Three

Just to prove how incomprehensible the male mind was, Jon fell madly in love with Rosa after the day she punched him without punching him. It was puppy love, and Rosa knew for a fact that he would grow out of it--and was glad of it, too. But it was the first time a male looked at her with adoration in his eyes, and she discovered that she liked it--even if it was coming from a grubby kitchen boy who'd been tormenting her for years.

Even more surprising was when she found herself looking back.

She did her best to disguise it by telling herself that it was just because he had at last grown into his looks, and had indeed become very handsome. Half the girls in the palace were swooning over him, and he was still only fourteen--why, think how much more handsome he'd be when he was fully-grown!

But the fact remained that, despite all her efforts to the contrary, Rosa had developed just as much of a crush on Jon as he had on her.

It was entirely frustrating, and made absolutely no sense. But there it was.

She managed to distract herself from her adolescent woes with study of the book on sorcery. She found, to her delight, that she _was _a sorcerer of the ancient blood; she had inherited the gift from her mother. All the spells in the book worked when she tried them--although she didn't try all of them, of course. Some of them she couldn't picture _anyone_ using. There were spells to stop a person's heart, to break bones or mend them, and even one that was supposed to cause some sort of unspecified torture to its victim--accompanied by pictures of several people, their faces twisted and screaming in unbearable agony. She had shuddered at that one, and moved on as quickly as she could turn the pages.

Some of the spells were written in a language she couldn't read, some language of symbols that had nothing to do with the letters she knew. She had tried to squint at the tiny symbols and figure out what some of them meant, but had had no luck so far. Instead, she had vowed to search the entire library if she had to, to find a book that would teach her to read the language of symbols. After all, they had books on everything _else_ in the library; why not on this?

The book taught her everything she ever learned about sorcery. It taught her how to master her powers and bring them under her control, rather than having them respond to her unconscious will; she memorized all the useful spells in the book, and marked the pages of those that she might want to use one day. There was one section she found particularly interesting, regarding the power of mirrors:

__

Mirrors are one of the most powerful tools a sorcerer can have. It is believed that in days past sorcerers were able to do many incredible things with mirrors; spying at long distances, seeing the future, seeing the past, etc. However, the knowledge on how to perform these spells has all been lost, and the spells should therefore never be attempted due to the possible consequences (see pg. 923).

The one thing it is still remembered how to do with a mirror is how to imprison a person within. This is very rarely done, for once it is, the only way the person within the mirror can be freed is if the person who set the spell dies--and if the mirror is shattered, the person trapped within will die.

Consider yourself forewarned as to the possible consequences of this spell. If you should still wish to do so, you will first need a mirror--size and dimensions matter not, as long as it is a mirror. Mere reflective surfaces will not work--in other words, you could not imprison a person in the blade of a sword. It must _be a mirror._

Second, you will need the blood of the person you wish to imprison--freely given or forcefully taken, it matters not. In sorcery, blood is power; blood is more binding than any other bodily fluid. When used wisely, it can enhance the power of a spell more than many people think possible; when not careful enough, it can end up being the destroyer of a sorcerer's life (see pg. 923).

She found the possible uses of mirrors very intriguing, perhaps because she had always liked mirrors--especially when using them to look at her own reflection. She'd known since she was just six years old that she was astoundingly beautiful, and since then, had especially loved to compare her own reflection to Snow's. If only she wasn't so short! Damn Snow for being so tall and skinny, anyway.

She was highly tempted for a moment to see if she could manage to perform some of the forgotten spells the text had mentioned; she secretly cherished the notion of being able to spy on anyone, anywhere, at anytime, without them knowing she was there. But she had flipped to the twice-mentioned page 923 out of curiosity--the first page of the final chapter, aptly named Warnings for Sorcerers--and after reading that chapter, would never have been foolish enough to attempt the spells without prior knowledge.

The final chapter was twenty whole pages of nothing but warnings. Never use your own blood in a spell except under extreme caution; if the spell was forcefully shattered, the binding power of the blood could serve to seriously harm or even kill the poor sorcerer who had set it. Never attempt a spell without complete prior knowledge of how to work it; the consequences for a mistake when working magic where so dire that Rosa didn't even want to think about them. Never push yourself beyond your limits; at the best, you would end up with a splitting headache, and at worst, you would end up dead. Never try to work a spell around iron; there was something about cold iron that magic just didn't agree with. And most importantly of all, never allow your body to be pierced by iron when working sorcery. The results of that were the reason why sorcerers very rarely participated in battles.

By the time she was fifteen, Rosa had the entire book memorized (including the spells in the mysterious symbol-language--she had found a dusty manuscript in the library that translated from Torlemontian to every other language in the known world) and was searching in the library for anything she could find that had even the slightest thing to do with sorcery. She thought about binding Snow in a mirror, but decided that petty vengeance wasn't anywhere near worth the risk involved; instead, she plagued her sister's life with any number of other small annoyances, from sudden cases of measles to a spell carefully designed to make her slip at the tenth step up on the Grand Staircase (that had resulted in a leg broken in three places). It was infinitely satisfying to know that no one could ever trace _her_ back to these small annoyances; instead, Snow merely became known for her klutziness and bad luck.

Meanwhile, her crush on Jon merely continued to grow larger. Eight months before her sixteenth birthday, she found herself unable to concentrate even on her book of sorcery without his face interrupting her thoughts, and stomped out to the stables in disgust at herself. It was there that she at last gave in to the inevitable, and made love with Jon in a hayloft.

It wasn't exactly the most enjoyable sexual experience she'd ever have; the hay constantly prickled at her back, and Jon couldn't exactly be described as an experienced lover (when asked, he confided that he'd done it once before, with a kitchen maid--and had been very drunk at the time, and didn't remember a thing). It was her first time, though, and she supposed it should have at least felt special. But somehow, it didn't.

As if that wasn't enough, she and Jon fell completely and totally out of love with each other by the next morning. Maybe they could have retained their innocent affection had they each remained distant and untouchable to the other--but along with her virginity and her childhood, Rosa lost any feeling she had ever had for the grubby little kitchen boy who had helped her discover her magic.

There was one thing that made up for it, though. Along with her change from girl into woman, the powers of her sorcery increased. It was entirely intriguing; in all 943 pages of her book on sorcery, never had it been mentioned that losing one's virginity made for an increase of power. Yet there was no other explanation for how much easier the spells came to her now.

A week later, she quite firmly informed her father that she was never going to get married. She told him she was absolutely certain she was never going to fall in love; men were all well and good, but she was positive there wasn't a single one she would ever want to spend her life with. What she didn't tell him was that there were plenty she would most definitely want to share her bed with. He smiled indulgently and patted her on the head as though she were five instead of fifteen and asked wasn't it about time for her to be heading off to bed? Firmly convinced that her father had no idea she wasn't a child anymore, she headed off to her bed obediently, and tried not to think too much about how depressingly empty it was.

For along with her newfound womanhood and increase in powers had come a most definite liking for men. Oh, she hadn't lied to her father at all; she was certain there wasn't a male born who would ever hold more than (perhaps) a tiny portion of her heart. But that didn't mean she couldn't share her bed with whomever she pleased--and she had discovered that she possessed a certain sort of beauty and natural charm that could lure almost any man to her bed. She thoroughly intended to take shameless advantage of that fact.

The one man her charm failed on was the one who taught her to be ruthless.

Vekua Velar. It was a name that should have belonged to a Prince, or at the very least a Lord--certainly not a common-born stablehand. He didn't look, sound, or act like a common-born stablehand; the identity of his father was unknown, but Rosa was sure, whoever he was, he had been royalty.

Whoever his father had been, Vekua's face was as beautiful as the soft southern accents of his name. Long black hair, sweeping downwards in elegant waves to just below his shoulder blades; soft, sparkling blue eyes, eyes a woman could drown herself in, framed by lashes that many of the same women would have killed for. His lips were full and sensuous, his skin tone pleasantly coppery; he was tall and lean rather than muscular, but that made absolutely no difference. On any other man, his features would have seemed overly effeminate; on Vekua Velar, they were virile perfection.

Every woman in the entire palace was swooning the day he came to work there. Fate would have it that he was engaged and head over heels in love with another of the stablehands--and a plainer, uglier woman Rosa had never seen in her life.

Engaged or not, Rosa knew the first time she saw him that she had to have him.

She tried her hardest. She tried every approach she knew, from so subtle it would have taken a mindreader to decipher her attentions, to flirtation so blatant it sickened her. She exerted every inch of her considerable charm, and all on just this one man.

Nothing worked. Vekua was so in love with his fiancée it was positively sickening.

At last she resorted to the only means left to her--magic.

She set a trap to ensnare him, a spell intended to make him forget all about his hideous fiancée and concentrate entirely on her. And oh, it worked; it worked even better than she had intended.

He came to her just as she had intended, and spent with her one of the most enjoyable nights of her life. The next morning, he broke off the engagement with his fiancée, and insisted upon following her around devotedly everywhere she went.

For a few days, it was rather amusing, having her own private toy that would do anything she asked of him. But it got very annoying, very quickly.

After a week of having put up with his nonsense, she redid the spell, this time to make him fall _out_ of love with her and back _in_ love with his ugly little ex-fiancée. The next day, he was as devoted to her as he had been to Rosa; she was mad at him, naturally, and refused to take him back no matter how much he begged. Rosa didn't particularly care; she was just glad to be rid of him. She never knew exactly what happened to him; all she knew was that the woman who had once been his fiancée never actually married him. For all she knew, he had died of a broken heart--and good riddance.

There were three very important lessons she learned from that little mess. One: Never use a spell unless you know exactly how it's going to work. Two: Be subtle.

And three: Never hesitate to use sorcery; be ruthless.

Her father threw a gigantic party for her sixteenth birthday; it was an entire six months in the planning. It was at that party that she met Prince Rayden of Mossenden.


	4. Chapter Four

"It looks _horrible!_" Rosa wailed, delicately stomping a foot. "I can't be seen out in public like--like this!"

Nanle scowled at the offending blonde braids as though demanding that they stay still and behave as proper hair should. "Really, milady, it doesn't look that bad," she ventured, trying to pull one of the braids over to the side where it belonged.

"Yes, it does." She scowled over her shoulder at her maid, then returned to glaring at her reflection in the mirror. "Do something else with it. I won't be seen with my hair sticking up in three places like I just got out of bed and haven't brushed it yet."

"But we've only got a few minutes left until the party starts," Nanle objected, but retrieved the brush and began undoing the braids anyway.

"I'd rather be late and beautiful than early and ugly. Oh, I don't even know why I bother; it's not like anyone who I want to impress is going to be there anyway."

"What about Prince Rayden, milady?" Nanle asked, running the brush through her princess's hair.

"What about him? Honestly, Nanle, can he really be as handsome as everyone says he is? His father was the ugliest man I've ever seen, and his mother was even worse. No one with parents like that could be anything but hideous."

"Oh, he's every bit as handsome as everyone says," Nanle declared sincerely, pulling back half of Rosa's hair in the style commonly known as a pony's tail and securing it with a hair tie. "Just wait until you meet him. You'll see." The pony's tail was braided in a matter of minutes; Nanle looked it over thoroughly, then nodded her approval. "What do you think?"

Rosa pursed her lips, looking it over in the mirror. "Well...it'll do, at the very least. It's simple, but it still looks pretty."

"You'll have every man there half in love with you as soon as you enter, milady."

Rosa gazed at her reflection with a little smile, mentally agreeing with Nanle. Her dress had been made specifically for the occasion; it was deep navy blue velvet, a color that brought out matching highlights in her eyes, and while it was a bit simple to be quite in fashion, Rosa intended to start a new one. No doubt it would have mixed results; not every woman had her perfect figure and natural beauty. The hem was a little shorter than the current fashionably acceptable length, showing off beautiful ankles and navy velvet slippers that perfectly matched the shade of her dress. With her hair done in the simple but beautiful style Nanle had come up with...they _would_ all be drooling over her, wouldn't they?  
She just hoped Prince Rayden really was as handsome as Nanle seemed to think he was. Otherwise, it might all be for naught.

Rosa lay in bed, feeling quite satisfied, and decided that the night had definitely not all been for naught.

At her first sight of Prince Rayden, she'd received quite a shock. It wasn't that he was handsome--for he was, which was quite a shock in a family as notoriously ugly as his. He could have given Vekua Velar a run for his money, as a matter of fact. His hair was dark brown, with coppery highlights that shone when in the direct glare of candlelight; his eyes were a brilliant emerald green that sparkled with humor. He was tall, lean, and muscular, and his silk navy tunic and matching breeches (the exact same shade as her dress, she was pleased to note) did everything to offset the light coppery tone of his skin.

The shock that had held her speechless for several moments was the unmistakable surprise of finding someone else of the ancient blood.

She had no idea how she had known, but she _knew_, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Prince Rayden of Mossenden was a sorcerer of the ancient blood, just as she was. It was amazing the amount of insight that came with the shock--she knew, somehow, that it had come to him from his father (who was _not_ really the King of Mossenden), and that he had absolutely no idea what he was (that he was a bastard _or_ that he was a sorcerer).

She quite looked forward to informing him of that last.

It had been almost ridiculously easy to get him into bed with her. A seductive purr, an unmistakable silent invitation, and later that night he came to her in her rooms. Their lovemaking was quite an enjoyable experience; Rayden was about as much a virgin as she was, and quite adept at pleasing women. And so now she lay in bed next to him, exhausted but happy, and debated the best time to reveal to him that he was a sorcerer.

He would become her lover, of course. Her sorcerer lover.

She smiled at that. It had quite a nice ring to it.

Her sorcerer husband?

Now _there_ was a thought. It would be easy to make him fall in love with her, and just as easy to convince him to take her to the altar; after all, the unofficial but well-known reason he'd come here for her birthday ball was to look over the two tirVardossa daughters as marriage prospects. Rosa knew she'd have to get married someday; why not to another sorcerer? And he was handsome, and he was good in bed; those three in conjunction were more than she had ever hoped for.

Smiling, she curled up against Rayden's slumbering form, and fell asleep.

It never even occurred to her that _he_ might not want to marry _her._

Prince Rayden became her first steady lover, just as she had predicted. She assumed he had every intention of marrying her; why shouldn't he? After all, half the other men around the castle were madly in love with her, and there was no reason he should be any different. The only possible reason she could think of was if he was already in love with someone else, as Vekua Velar had been, and she knew for a fact that he had no such previous attachments.

She never quite got around to revealing to him that he was a sorcerer. The time was never quite right; a couple times, she came close, only to be interrupted by someone or something else. At last she decided that it wasn't really all that important; truly, he could die without ever knowing, for all she cared.

Her first argument with a lover came the day she found out that Rayden was leaving, without a sign of having decided to marry her.

Rosa stood in the doorway, hands upon her hips, glaring at the scene within. "What," she demanded, "are you doing?"

"Packing," Rayden said, perching on the edge of the bed and pausing to look up at her. "What does it look like?"

"You aren't going to marry me?" she heard herself ask; it was the first thing that came to mind, and she mentally cursed herself for having said it.

He stared at her incredulously. "Why would I be?"

She swallowed, hard. "Everyone knows you came here to look me and Snow over as choices for a bride."

"I did, and I've decided I'm not going to marry either one of you. And don't get all teary-eyed and pretend your heart is broken, either." Pulling a bag into his lap, he resumed packing.

"Why _not_ marry me? Don't tell me you're naive enough to be waiting to fall in love! And if you married me..." She trailed off, not able to finish the sentence: if he married her, any children they might have would be sorcerers, which was quite a desirable trait (at least in her opinion).

He looked up at her again, a corner of his mouth quirking upwards. "Sorry, but my father wants me to follow tradition and marry a virgin."

Desperate, she seized on the first tactic that came to mind. "I _was _a virgin the first time we made love!"

He actually laughed aloud. "You were as much a virgin then as you are now!"

"What if you got me pregnant? You'd have to marry me then." Not quite true; there weren't any laws stating that a man had to marry a woman if he got her pregnant, but she knew the way Rayden thought quite well by now. If he ever _did _some girl pregnant, he was too honorable not to marry her.

"And I suppose next you're going to claim that your courses are late and you've always been regular before, and I've obviously gotten you pregnant so I've got to marry you. Sorry, Rosa. Any tactic you can think of, I've seen before. And like I said, my father wants me to marry a virgin."

"A virgin like _Snow_?"  
He was clearly surprised at that. "What, do you think I'm planning on marrying _Snow White?_ I promise you, I wouldn't have her if she was the last woman on the planet."

"Oh, _sure_ you wouldn't." Her brain instantly seized upon this new line of attack; perhaps it was her sorcery-enhanced instincts at work again, or perhaps it was just inspired by jealousy. "That's what they _all_ say. You were sleeping with her, too, weren't you? All the time you were with me--"

He was frankly staring at her now. "With _Snow White?_ Good gods, woman, are you _crazy?_" He laughed. "I don't think I have the stamina to be sleeping with _both_ of you!"

She glared at him for a few moments, at a loss for what to say, then turned on her heel and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind her. No matter what he said, she _knew_, the same way she'd _known_ that he was a sorcerer. He'd been cheating on her--with her own sister, yet! And _damn_ Snow for stealing her lover from her!  
She would most definitely have to find an appropriate way of acquiring her revenge.


	5. Chapter Five

Prince Rayden and his party were two weeks away from the Mossenden border when Rayden went out into the woods to take a piss and didn't come back. The guards wondered what had happened, sent out search parties, and at last settled camp and waited all night for him to return. When he didn't come back the next day, they shrugged and continued towards Mossenden, carrying the woeful news that the Prince had been lost along the way.

Prince Rayden never showed up in Mossenden again. Everyone speculated for quite some time afterward on what might have happened to him; none of the guesses came anywhere near the truth.

Rayden paused a moment and stretched, longing to be back home with a hot bath waiting for him. He definitely wasn't meant to be a traveler; he hated trekking through wilderness and getting dirty and having to sleep on the ground. Thank all the gods that they only had another four weeks of travel to go--two to the Mossenden border, and another two to get to the capital and the castle. Then he would finally be home--home, with baths hot enough to scald his skin and a luxuriously soft bed for him to lounge around in whenever he liked.

With a rueful shrug, he turned to head back to the path where the rest of the group was waiting, and was quite surprised to find himself face to face with Princess Rosa tirVardossa of Torlemont.

He managed to think of several choice curses before he found his voice, but settled instead on saying, "What are you _doing_ here?"

She smiled, something feral and not quite sane glittering the backs of her eyes; he suddenly knew, without knowing where the knowledge came from, that she had at last been pushed over the edge of an abyss she had been teetering on the edge of for a very long time. "Coming to get my revenge."

"Revenge?" he repeated dumbly, wondering what the _hell_ she was talking about. Good gods, had the woman really gone insane? It took him several minutes to remember the argument they'd had before he left. "Oh, come on. Don't tell me you still think I was sleeping with Snow White."

"I don't _think_ anything. I _know_." That feral smile lingering on her face, she pulled two objects from the pockets of her dress. The sunlight glittered off both of them; the steel blade of a knife, and a large mirror with an opal embedded in the handle. And how the hell had such a big mirror fit in her pocket, anyway?

"What is going on--" He broke off the sentence in the middle, leaping backwards as she lunged for him. The heel of his foot caught on a tree root, and the force of his leap sent him sprawling over backward; the back of his head hit a nearby tree with a thud, sending the world spinning around him. When his vision cleared, she had grabbed his right arm, knife held in her other hand, mirror discarded on the ground nearby.

"What--" The word became a scream as she dragged the knife across his arm, cutting deep. Blood spilled down his arm, the wound spreading a burning pain all the way up to his shoulder--what the hell was going _on_, anyway? There was no way a simple knife wound could ever hurt this badly.

Vaguely, through the dim fog of the pain, he heard Rosa's voice. "Hurts, doesn't it? Iron has that effect on those of the ancient blood." _Now_ what was she talking about? He opened his mouth to ask her, but all that emerged was a scream.

His vision cleared for a moment, and he saw her hold the mirror underneath the cut on his arm. The blood dripped and pooled on the glass, a crimson puddle that soaked up into the mirror. Then his vision fogged again, and the last thing he heard was Rosa's voice.

"I trust you'll enjoy being a mirror, Prince Rayden."

Rosa stood in her room, cradling the mirror in her arms with an almost maternal fondness. She knew she was grinning like a madman, but couldn't have cared less; revenge was so glorious! She couldn't have thought of a more beautiful punishment for Prince Rayden; banning him to life in a mirror, subject to her every whim--it was perfect. She hadn't quite figured out what to do with Snow yet, but was positive she would think of something. One of those spells for pain would probably do quite nicely; it had been so very delightful to watch her ex-lover screaming with the pain of an iron blade searing his flesh.

Giggling, she held the mirror out at arm's length. "So, my little _mirror_," she purred; emphasis on the word mirror, to remind him of his current predicament, not that he would have any trouble remembering. She laughed in delight as Prince Rayden's face appeared within the mirror, sour and scowling. "Tell me--who's the fairest of them all?"

He struggled against it quite visibly for a few moments; she couldn't help but admire his resilience, to keep fighting even it was obvious that resistance was futile. The spells binding him were good--after all, _she_ had cast them!--and when she asked a question, he had to answer it with the truth.

At last, he gave in. "You are."

She laughed aloud, twirling in place and feasting on the sheer delight of her vengeance. This was certainly the most glorious day of her life! Revenge truly was a delicious dish.

And she would most definitely make sure that he did _not_ enjoy being a mirror.


	6. Chapter Six

Snow felt herself nodding off again, and struggled to stay awake. She _had_ to stay conscious long enough to finish her essay; it was due tomorrow, and she'd already sat through Master Karlyle's lectures on deadlines several times--and had no desire to repeat the experience once more. Blinking at the tattered piece of parchment, she tried to remember where she had been when she'd started to fall asleep this time.

Thank goodness; she was nearly at the bottom. An essay on all the current royal families tended to take quite a long time to complete; there were at least twenty small princedoms in Torlemont alone, with ten or so more in Mossenden, and that wasn't even mentioning the families that ruled the entire countries. And, of course, Master Karlyle had insisted that she write at least one paragraph about each and every member of each and every royal family member, including herself.

She was at the bottom now, though, with the current royal family of Mossenden. Sighing, she dipped the quill in the inkwell and applied it to the parchment to write the final paragraph.

_Prince Rayden of Mossenden,_ she wrote. _He was the King's heir, but mysteriously disappeared on his way home after a trip to the royal castle of Torlemont. No one knows what happened to him, but he is currently assumed dead, although it is only a year since his disappearance and quite possible that he is alive somewhere._

The disappearance of Prince Rayden had, in the past year, become one of her pet unsolved mysteries. She'd always had quite a penchant for any mystery that had remained unsolved; she'd never actually found the solutions to any, but she'd worry over them and try to solve them anyway. Prince Rayden's disappearance was more frustrating than most; perhaps it had something to do with the fact that she'd actually met the man. True, she'd only spoken to him once or twice the entire time he'd been in Torlemont, but that didn't matter; she'd still met him, and her curiosity demanded to know what had happened to him.

She'd tried asking her sister once; after all, she had stated innocently, since Rosa had known him so very well, perhaps she would have some idea what might have caused him to disappear so suddenly. Rosa had stomped up to her room without ever giving her a straight answer--not that she really thought her sister knew anything about it. More likely, she'd just been angry at the reference to her little affair with the Prince.

_And she thinks it's some sort of big secret_, she thought scornfully, _as if everyone in the castle didn't know the two of them were sleeping together. Everyone also knows she had her heart set on being his wife, and was pretty ticked off when he left without saying a word about it. But of course, _she _thinks all that is some sort of big secret._

In a way, it was; after all, nobody ever talked about it in public--and yet everyone knew about it. It was what she had once heard her father refer to as a "gigantic secret scandal," which hadn't made much sense to her at the time.

It made sense now, now that she'd experienced it firsthand. Everyone knew about it, and everyone knew that everyone else knew about it, but nobody talked about it, and nobody ever let on that they knew, even though everyone knew that they knew.

On second thought, maybe it _didn't_ make sense now. It was just too confusing.

Shaking her head, she rolled up the parchment into a neat little tube and secured it with a piece of twine, then closed her inkwell and placed it and the quill into their safe compartments inside her desk. She was walking towards the door when she tripped over the leg of her desk and went sprawling to the floor. It wouldn't have been _that_ much of a catastrophe, but the parchment caught on something as she fell and ripped straight in half, neat as you please.

Snow generally didn't approve of profanity, but at the moment she was mentally cycling through every curse word she knew. _Why_ had the gods cursed her with such bad luck? She'd never met _anyone_ who was as much of a klutz as she was. Her luck had been just fine before she hit puberty, too; but after that, she'd become the worst klutz in all Torlemont.

Her bad luck rubbed off, too. Anyone she'd ever been on her way to becoming friends with had immediately become every bit as much of a klutz as she was, with accidents plaguing them everywhere they went. From the instant they stopped being friends with her, their bad luck ceased.

Her bad luck (and the fact that it was contagious) was well known. Hence, she had absolutely no friends.

Taking in a deep breath, she tried not to think too hard about how much work had gone into the ruined essay, and got to her feet. The torn parchment she threw in the nearby wastebasket; crossing the room to her desk, she pulled out another sheet, along with her inkwell and quill.

She'd just have to work on it the rest of the day, that was all. She wouldn't get anything _else_ done, and Miss Jorlian would fuss at her for not completing the math problems she'd been given, but what else could she do? She really didn't have much of a choice.

But before she started, she really needed to have a snack. Technically, she wasn't supposed to be eating anything before dinner; but right now, she was starving, and knew she could sneak something out from the kitchen.

Opening the door, she turned and headed down the stairs, taking the steps one at a time and very carefully. She'd learned a long time ago that stairs were one of her worst enemies; she'd broken her leg in three places once, by taking a nasty fall downstairs. Hence, she was as careful as she could be anytime she was anywhere near a set of stairs--but that didn't always stop her bad luck from kicking in.

Apparently, it wasn't enough to stop it today. She stumbled over her own two feet, then tripped on empty air, and went tumbling headfirst down the staircase. She heard something snap and her right wrist started throbbing, and then her head collided with the banister and stars swam in front of her eyes.

Rosa was standing at the foot of the stairs, looking surprised. "Snow! Are you all right?" she exclaimed, bending over.

"You're all fuzzy around the edges," she told her sister confidentially, then grinned. "You look awfully funny."

Rosa ran to get a healer, and Snow spent the rest of the day in the infirmary with a broken wrist and a concussion. She'd spent so much time there that she knew half of the healers quite well by now, and they knew her. She'd laughingly said once that they _should_ know her; fixing her when she broke was one of their hobbies.

Maybe her luck wasn't being all bad today. After all, with a broken right wrist, at least she had an excuse for missing the deadline on her essay.

She was up and out of bed the next day, but tripped over a table and sprained her ankle within half a candlemark of leaving the infirmary. The healers bound it up, gave her a pair of crutches, and told her to be more careful in the future. She promised she would, and hobbled out with the aid of the crutches. The whole conversation had become routine.

She was excused from lessons until her ankle fully healed, but when her father and sister and most of the rest of the castle left to go on a hunt--a hunt that she was excluded from, supposedly because of her injuries but really because hunts, as everything else, were a complete disaster when she was present--she grew bored and read the day's lessons in her school books anyway. She even read the lesson in geography, normally her least favorite subject. After another half a candlemark of sitting around in her room trying to think of something to do, she gave up in disgust and went for a walk around the castle.

She didn't dare go downstairs, of course; with the crutches occasionally hindering her balance and almost no one else in the castle, she didn't even want to think of the mess she was capable of getting into. She walked all the way around the upper floor three times, then decided to explore some of the rooms besides her own. Torlemont castle was huge; she'd been living in it for seventeen years, and she _still_ hadn't seen all of it. She doubted she ever would; she didn't think anyone in the castle knew every nook and cranny of it, although she could be wrong.

The first three doors she tried were locked, but the fourth--the door to Rosa's room--opened the instant she pushed it on. Curious, she hobbled inside and looked around.

If she'd been expecting to find out some sort of dark secret about her sister, she was disappointed. The room looked perfectly normal. Bare of Rosa's belongings, it would have looked a lot like her own, with the mere exception that this room's decor was entirely in different shades of red, whereas Snow's was in shades of blue. The mahogany bed with the velvet curtains and silk sheets was exactly the same, as was the chest of drawers and the large walk-in oak wardrobe. With Rosa's things in it, it looked entirely different; Snow's room was so organized it looked almost bare, whereas Rosa's possessions were strewn all over the place in piles.

Shaking her head, she continued inside and started to look around, not really sure what she was looking for. The contents of the wardrobe were exactly what she would have expected; all three drawers in the nightstand were locked, with no sign of a key anywhere. Several jars of face paint were strewn atop the chest, with a large mirror on top of it all, as though it had been casually discarded on the nearest surface.

She'd seen the mirror many times; Rosa packed it with her everywhere she went, even on the shortest of trips. It was actually a very beautiful object; silver steel with engraved roses around the border, and a large opal embedded in the handle. She'd never seen it up close before; curious, she picked it up and gazed at her reflection.

Green eyes stared back at her, set in a face tanned bronze by the sun. She blew a strand of black hair out of her face irritably; it was almost down to her shoulders again. She'd have to get it cut soon. People had told her that it might be quite pretty if she let it grow out; she'd tried it once or twice, and had hacked it all off in annoyance within a week. It was getting in her way constantly anytime she let it grow further than the tips of her shoulder blades.

She dropped the mirror in shock when a face appeared inside it that wasn't her own.

She stood there for a moment, heart hammering in her chest, before she made herself pick it back up. Hand trembling, she turned it around and gazed into the glass.

Her own face stared back at her, emerald eyes wide.

She stared at it for a long time, waiting for the face to come back. She _knew_ she'd seen it; she knew it! She'd only gotten a glimpse, but it was enough to have a vague impression; brown hair, green eyes like hers, but a man's face, and entirely different from her own. It couldn't have been her imagination. It _couldn't _have been.

If it was, she was going crazy. She _knew_ she'd seen a face.

She waited for what seemed like several candlemarks, but nothing happened. At last she glared at her reflection in disgust and carefully put the mirror back where she'd gotten it, then picked up her clutches and hobbled back out. Her curiosity had completely disappeared after she'd seen (or imagined, or whatever) the face in the mirror. Carefully closing the door behind her, she hobbled into her room and lay back down on the bed, closing her eyes.

Imagining faces in a mirror that weren't hers. What was _wrong_ with her?


	7. Chapter Seven

A/N: Thank you thank you to my loverly reviewers! You're too kind. -tosses cookies- I'm really sorry that it's been so long since I last updated, but I've been kinda busy with real life lately and haven't had all that much time to write. However, I'm back, school is out at the end of the month, and I should have more free time to write over the summer. So be happy! -nod-

__

He was a formless spirit, trapped within the mirror, helpless and despising it with all his might. "Let me out!" he begged her. "Do something, anything! Do _something, damn you!"_

She tried to move, tried to help him although she had no idea how; she could feel his anger at being trapped like this, his despair that he might never get out--could feel all his emotions as though they were her own. But no matter how hard her muscles strained, she couldn't move, couldn't do anything. She was utterly and completely helpless, as trapped as the spirit imprisoned in the mirror.

Snow sat straight up in bed, sweating and tangled in the sheets. The candle on her nightstand had gone out, and it was a new moon outside; she froze and clutched the blanket to her chest, held frozen by her phobia.

Somehow, she managed to make her muscles work, moving jerkily from the bed and making her way through the room by feel. She half fell against the door and yanked it open, sighing in relief and collapsing against the wall as light from the hallway torches flooded her room. It was a rule in the castle that torches were always left lit in the commonly-used hallway; they were something of a fire hazard, but at least it kept people from tripping over things when they had to use the privy in the middle of the night (with a princess as clumsy as Snow, one had to take such precautions).

Over the past few days, the mirror had become yet another of her pet mysteries. She'd remained excused from lessons, and she needed _something_ to do with her time, after all; why not try and figure it out? At last she had decided that it really had been her imagination--but although her brain had dismissed it, her subconscious evidently refused to accept that she had just imagined it. This was the third time this week she'd woken up sweating from the exact same nightmare.

Grabbing the candle from her nightstand, she stepped gingerly out into the hallway and lit the wick from one of the hallway torches. The castle was utterly deserted this late at night; not even the servants were around. Rosa wouldn't even be in her room--she was on a trip to visit their cousin in Terlet, and was going to be gone for quite some time. Snow had been snooping around, and happened to already know that she'd forgotten to pack her beloved mirror.

She tiptoed all the way to Rosa's room, careful of the creaky board in the hallway and entirely avoiding the stairs; she hadn't had an accident for several days now, which meant she was overdue, and whatever happened next was likely to be truly horrible. Thank the gods; the door to her sister's room was unlocked, and the mirror laid out on the bed--she'd probably intended to pack it, but had forgotten and left without it. Snatching it, she closed the door behind her and tiptoed all the way back to her own room.

Collapsing onto her bed stomach first, she held the mirror in front of her and gazed at it. Her own face looked back at her, gnawing nervously at her lower lip. "Hello?" she whispered, as quietly as she could--she didn't want to wake anyone else in the castle. "Is anyone there?"

Her own reflection blurred once, then twice, then solidified into an entirely different image. Coppery skin, brown hair about as long as her own, green eyes a little darker than hers--definitely a masculine face. The man in the mirror looked vaguely familiar, but it took her a moment to place it; when she did, she nearly dropped the mirror in shock.

In all her wildest dreams, she'd never imagined that the mystery of the mirror and the mystery of Prince Rayden's disappearance were really one and the same.

"Prince Rayden?" She stared at the mirror, blinking.

He blinked back. "Snow White?" He sounded about as surprised as she was.

"What are _you_ doing in a mirror?" she demanded.

A corner of his mouth twisted sardonically. "Your sister put me in here."

"_Rosa?_ How?"

"Sorcery." She raised an eyebrow; he glared at her. "Well, how _else_ would I have gotten in here?"

"Well..._why_ did she put you in here? I mean, I thought you two were--well..."

"Screwing?" he suggested. She felt her cheeks growing warm; his mouth twisted. "Evidently something I did pissed her right off."

"Because you didn't marry her."

"That, and plus she somehow got the idea that I was cheating on her with you."

"With _me?_"

"With you. I tried to tell her it was about the _least _likeliest thing to happen, but would she listen? Of course not. So the bitch put me in this gods-damned place, and as far as I know, there's no way for me to get out. So I'm just fucked." He shrugged. "Sorry. I haven't been around anyone civilized in quite some time."

"Don't worry, I've heard it before," she assured him. "So...any idea why she picked this particular sort of revenge? Seems a little odd to me."

"Making me her gods-damned slave, that's why. Little bitch. How did you manage to find me, anyway?"

"I don't know. I saw you once, when I was snooping in Rosa's room--and just now, I couldn't sleep so I went to her room and took the mirror to see if I could see you again. I don't know why it worked this time."

"Well, you're the only person besides Rosa who's been able to talk to me so far. So who knows, maybe you'll be able to get me out. Although I seriously fucking--I seriously doubt it." He shrugged ruefully. "Sorry. I've gotten used to having a dirty mouth because it pisses Rosa off."

"Like I said. I've heard it before."

"If you say so." He sighed. "Please don't put me back in Rosa's room. I'm sick and tired of putting up with her shit."

"But what would I do when she noticed you were gone? Knowing the way she carries this mirror around with her everywhere, she'd probably panic as soon as she came home and it wasn't where she left it."

He thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Shit. I guess you can't. Oh, well. I've been putting up with the bitch for a year, I'll survive. Not like I've got much of a choice."

"You know, I've been wondering all year where you went. Everyone has all kinds of theories on what happened to you, and why you just mysteriously disappeared. Rumor has it your father is going to divorce your mother and take another wife so he can get another heir."

"Figures." He sighed. "Shit, shit, and double shit. You have no idea how much I miss having a body."

"I can imagine."

"No, you can't."

"You're right, I can't."

She had the distinct impression that he stretched, although she couldn't see much more of him than his head and shoulders. "You know, you're the first person I've talked to in a whole year that isn't a total asshole."

"I'm so honored. Although considering that the only person you've talked to in the past year is Rosa, I'm not real sure it's much of a comparison."

"Certainly not," he said, then, in a complete change of subject, "What time is it, anyway?"

She shrugged. "I think it's around midnight."

"Oh. Aren't you tired?"

"Now that you mention it...yes." She yawned. "I hope you don't mind if I go to sleep."

"Good night, Snow White."

"Call me Snow," she muttered, collapsing into her pillow. She stayed awake long enough to shove the mirror under her pillow where it would be safe, and then was asleep in an instant.

Saying that being a mirror wasn't fun would have been a gross understatement. Saying that it was hell didn't quite encompass the matter, either. In some of his spare time, he tried to find a statement that would describe what it was like; he hadn't found one yet.

Putting up with Rosa all day was definitely the worst part of it. He tried to make her angry whenever he could; it was fun watching her face turn purple. She always managed to get back at him, though. She loved to taunt him by asking that question, "Who's the fairest of them all?" Damn, but it grated on his nerves to have to admit there was anything positive about that bitch, even if it was just looks.

The second worst part was not having a body. It didn't happen often, but there were times when he could _feel_ his foot itch, and yet ht couldn't scratch it--the only part of him that had any sort of a (relatively) physical manifestation was his head and shoulders.

And now, of course, being around a woman other than Rosa, he missed his body most of all. Not that Snow White was that attractive; but hell, she was pretty in her own way, and Rosa had probably ruined his taste for beautiful women anyway. And having been totally celibate for a year...he was desperate.

Oh, _hell._ What had he ever done to deserve this, anyway? Maybe he'd never been a saint, but it wasn't like he'd ever done enough to deserve hell in a mirror.

Sleep was an odd, empty, dreamless thing when one was a mirror, but he tried his best anyway. After all, most of the time he didn't have anything better to do. Sleep was instant and engulfing tonight, which he was grateful for. It did at least mean that he wouldn't have to sit around (figuratively speaking) with nothing to do except be bored.

A/N: Prince Rayden has a dirty mouth. -nod- Sorry that this chapter is so short; I promise the next one will be longer. I'm trying to write this story and Cursed Rose at the same time, which is difficult. Plus I am a Professional Procrastinator (I would have become a Professional Procrastinator earlier in my life, but I kept putting it off).

Um…I had something else I was going to say, but I forgot what it was. If I remember what it was, I'll put it in the next chapter. Bye for now! -waves and runs off-


	8. Chapter Eight

A/N: I'm finally updating! Yay! For those of you who are reading Cursed Rose too, I'll try to get it updated soon; I have to stay up till 7 AM tonight to say goodbye to my friend, so who knows, I might even update it later on tonight/this morning. Okay, back to this story. Y'know, this chapter was actually really easy to write. I guess I just got inspired. I started writing and the characters got out of control. O_o Then I tried to stop and do the dishes and they were like the Energizer bunny…they just kept going…and going…and going…and-- -smacks self- Oof. Sorry about that, I have sleep deprivation. It IS 3:30 in the morning, after all.

Oh yeah, I have a question for those of you who have read my other story Cinder Girl. Do you guys think I should write a sequel to it? I have ideas for it, I just don't know if I'm actually going to write it…would you guys read it if I did? Do you think it needs a sequel, or is it fine the way it is? I need feedback here people! -tosses a piece of macaroni in the air- (-cough- Sorry…sleep deprivation again.) Oh, and if you haven't read Cinder Girl, then go read it! Chop chop! What are you waiting for?! -ducks as various objects get thrown at her head-

Rosa paced her room restlessly, hands shoved into her coat pockets and a scowl resting upon her face. She couldn't believe she'd actually forgotten to bring her mirror; how could she have been so stupid? Leaving it lying out on her bed like she had done, anybody could walk into her room and find it, maybe even discover the secret of the Prince entrapped within--

No, she was just being paranoid. The only way Rayden could come out was if someone called him, and there was no way anyone could possibly know enough to go around calling him. Her secret was safe.

The mirror had just better be where she had left it when she got home tomorrow. If it wasn't, someone was going to pay.

Although if someone _had_ taken the mirror--

She paused in her pacing, and a slow smile spread across her face. If someone _had_ taken the mirror, they would know she was coming back tomorrow and replace it before she got there. If she wanted to catch them in the act, she'd just have to come home a day earlier.

On the other hand, she could just be being paranoid. But still...

She left the room, heading to tell her cousin that she had to leave today instead of tomorrow. Just in case.

Snow sat down on her bed, reaching under her pillow to grasp the handle of the mirror. Gazing into it, she saw nothing but her own face. "Rayden?" she called softly--she didn't want anyone walking by her room to overhear her seemingly talking to herself. "Are you there?"

His face appeared in the mirror almost at once. "No," was the immediate sarcastic reply. "I have been magically and mysteriously freed in the middle of the night. Of _course_ I'm here, not like I've got anywhere else to go."

"Okay, I guess that was a stupid question." She rolled over on her back. "Rosa's coming home tomorrow."

"Shit. Are you _sure_ you have to put me back in her room?"

"I'm sure. Sorry, but I don't want my sister to get mad at me."

"True. I've been on the receiving end of the bitch's temper--I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy." He sighed. "Did you call me for any reason other than to depress me?"

"I was bored."

He stared at her for a moment, then a corner of his mouth twitched upward. "I guess I can understand that. Hell, if you want to see boredom, try spending a fucking year as a mirror."

"I think I'll pass, thanks."

"Can't say I blame you."

"Hey, I wonder if--"

She broke off in mid-sentence, hearing footsteps and voices from downstairs. She recognized the voices of the two having the conversation, and from the look on Rayden's face, he did too.

"Of course I don't mind, dear," her father was saying, "but I don't see _why_ you had to come home so early--was Terlet not an interesting place?"

"Quite interesting, Father," Rosa responded airily, "but I'm afraid Sosa and I just didn't get along too well. Such a shame, too--she used to be such a nice person when she was younger."

Snow snorted at that; Sosa was the nicest person imaginable, and Rosa had been bullying her around ever since they were small children.

"Well, she's home early," Rayden said, bringing her attention back to the mirror. "I guess you won't be able to put me back in her room after all--"

He sounded quite cheerful about the whole thing. "You wish," she said tartly, bouncing off the bed and beginning to run down the hallway towards her sister's room. Running was a dangerous activity for someone as clumsy as she was, but being caught with her sister's mirror in her hand would be much worse--

Flinging open the door to Rosa's room, she carefully laid the mirror down atop the bedsheets, just as it had been when she had first found it. Hearing footsteps coming up the stairs, she whirled around on her heel, praying that she could make it back to her room in time--

And before she could move, Rosa and her father stood in the doorway, a servant behind them looking quite overloaded with Rosa's bags. Snow did a double take; how could they have possibly gotten up the stairs that quickly? They couldn't have; yet they had, and she had a serious feeling that she was in deep trouble.

"Snow!" her father exclaimed. "What are you doing in your sister's room?"

"Yes," Rosa broke in silkily. "What _are_ you doing in my room?" Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Snow saw her glance ever so briefly at the mirror on the bed.

"I...I...um...I..." At a complete loss for a viable explanation, all she could do was gape stupidly at her sister.

"Father, let _me_ handle this," Rosa demanded, taking her bags from the servant's arms and tossing them onto the floor by Snow's feet. Their father nodded agreeably and left the room; Rosa closed the door behind him and took two menacing steps toward Snow. "You were--" she began angrily, and then suddenly hesitated.

Rosa's inner conflict was obvious; she was _fairly_ sure Snow had been taking her mirror, but wasn't absolutely positive, and didn't want to say anything about it just in case she hadn't been. "I was what?" she asked pleasantly, resisting the urge to grin.

Suddenly Rosa snarled. "You were taking my mirror, you slutty little bitch!" Arm darting forward before she could move, she grabbed a fistful of Snow's hair and twisted her head around to one side.

Yelping, Snow wrapped her hands around Rosa's and tried to pry her hair free, but her sister's grip was amazingly strong. _I _knew_ I should have cut my hair! _"I don't--know--what--you're talking--about!" she managed to get out, kicking Rosa in the shin with the toe of her boot.

"Liar!" Rosa howled, yelping as Snow gave up on prying her fingers loose and began yanking on a fistful of her sister's hair. "You stole Rayden from me before and you're stealing him again you selfish--little--_bitch_--" Removing Snow's fingers from her hair, she pushed her over as hard as she could, knocking her over onto the bed.

"I don't know what you're talking--" Backing up to get away from Rosa's advance, her arm hit empty air and she fell off the bed, head hitting the ground with a thud. "I don't know what you're talking about!" Sitting up and rubbing the back of her head, she scowled. "What does the mirror have to do with Prince Rayden and how the heck did I ever steal him from you?!"

"Don't pretend you don't know! You were screwing him when he and I were together and now that I put him in the mirror you've been taking him from me again! I _know_ you have, I _know_ it! You _can't_ lie to me, Snow--I'll know if you are!" She snapped her fingers; seemingly of it's own accord, a vase rose off the dresser and began flying towards Snow's face. She barely managed to roll out of the way in time, and the vase shattered on the wall by her head.

__

Where did she manage to get the idea that I was sleeping with Rayden, anyway? The woman is just plain crazy-- She ducked as another vase went flying towards her head. Well, if Rosa really _could_ tell if she was lying or not-- "I _didn't_ sleep with Prince Rayden, I swear! I've never slept with _anyone_, I--"

She broke off her sentence in the middle as a figurine crashed to the wall over her head. Hand casting about blindly to her side for something to defend herself with, it landed on the ivory handle of a knife--wasn't iron supposed to be the old sorcerer's great weakness?

Flinging herself towards her sister, she brought the knife around, barely even nicking the skin of her sister's arm. It was a petty wound, and on anyone else shouldn't have caused more than a sting--

Rosa _screamed, _shrieked as though her entire arm had been cut open. Shocked at the strength of her reaction, she didn't see her sister's arm begin to swing, and was hit in the side of the head with a strength that made her dizzy and knocked her to the ground, head pounding.

Rosa stood over her, hand clasped over the tiny wound in her arm and panting as though she'd just run a mile. "Don't _ever_ use iron on me again, you little bitch. I will _kill_ you if you do."

The door swung open behind the two of them, their father walking into the room. "What the _hell_ is going on up here? I heard yelling, and then somebody screamed bloody murder--it sounded like you two were killing each other up here!"

__

I wasn't trying to kill her, but Rosa was sure as hell trying to kill me! She opened her mouth to say it--but no sound emerged. Her mouth worked, but she seemed to have lost her voice. There was but one explanation; her sister's sorcery.

"I'm sorry, Father," Rosa was saying quite calmly, hand removed from her arm. "I asked her what she was doing in her room, and she attacked me. You see the knife in her hand--it was her that screamed. She said she was going to cut herself and blame it on me. I don't know _what's_ wrong with her, honestly."

Their father stared at Rosa for a moment, then looked at Snow. "Is this true?"

She shook her head. "No! She's the one that attacked me--she's a sorcerer, Father, she's got Prince Rayden trapped in her mirror and--"

She broke off in the middle of her explanation, for both of them had started laughing. "Goodness!" Rosa was chortling. "I think you've been reading one too many adventure novels, Snow!"

"Indeed," Charlta agreed jovially. "Rosa, a sorcerer? Prince Rayden in her mirror? If you have to come up with an excuse for your behavior, at least make it a believable one!" He chuckled once more, then suddenly became serious. "Snow, I am quite ashamed of you. Apologize to your sister and go to your room."

She stared at her father in what she hoped was a defiant way--then met his gaze, and lowered her eyes. Resisting would do nothing but get her into further trouble. Crossing her fingers behind her back, she murmured, "I'm sorry, Rosa," and stretched a hand out behind her back. Grasping the handle of the mirror, she shoved it into the pocket of her dress, and walked past the two of them out the door.

Opening the closet door, Snow grabbed a bag from the bottom of the closet and tossed it onto her bed. Turning, she picked up the mirror and gazed into it; Prince Rayden's face appeared without her having to call him. "Well, you get to get away from Rosa," she informed him. "I'm leaving--I can go stay with my cousin Sosa in Terlet, she'll welcome me. And you're coming with me."

He raised a single eyebrow. "And what prompted this decision? Not that I'm not grateful for a chance to get away from the bitch, but it does seem a little sudden."

"Rosa found me in her room, putting you back--she said I'd been stealing her mirror and just _attacked _me, even though I said I didn't know what she was talking about--she basically _told_ me that she was a sorcerer and had you in this mirror, and she was trying to _kill _me! She accused me of sleeping with you, and...and...the woman is _crazy!_"

"You could have just said, 'She found me, shit exploded, she tried to kill me, and the bitch is crazy so I'm fucking leaving.' But oh well. I definitely don't blame you for leaving. Thanks for taking me with you."

"You're welcome." Laying the mirror down atop the bed, she walked back to her closet and began searching for something suitable for traveling. After minimal searching, she managed to find a decent pair of breeches and white shirt. Starting to undo her dress, she frowned and turned the mirror face down on the bed, ignoring Rayden's muffled protest. Changing swiftly into her new outfit, she began stuffing clothes into the bag.

There was barely room in the bag for all of her stuff. "You have to ride in my bag for a little while," she informed Rayden, and shoved him in the bag without waiting for his answer. Somehow, she managed to fasten the bag closed, and strolled out the door.

Amazingly enough, the hallways were empty, and she was able to find her way to the stable without anyone asking her where she was going. Grabbing a saddle and bridle from the tack room, she crossed to the stall of her riding mare, Nightfyre, and tacked her up rapidly; then, swinging up into the saddle, she grabbed her bag and rode out of the castle gates at top speed, headed for Terlet. 

A/N: And that, my friends, is that. -ducks as various sharp pointy objects are thrown- Oof! I promise I'll get the next chapter up soon--really!


	9. Chapter Nine

A/N: New chapter! Yay! -throws confetti in the air- I've actually had all of this chapter written except the last few paragraphs for the past few months now, it just took me until now to finish it. -sigh- Again, thanks much to all my loverly reviewers. -hands out cookies- Um. There was something else I was going to say, but it went away. -beats self in head- Anyway…I'll shut up and let you read the story now. I'm sure you'd appreciate that.

Her bad luck kicked in almost as soon as she left the castle gates. One of the guards saw her fleeing the castle and shouted a protest; another, slightly overambitious, loosed a volley of arrows towards her, which hit not her but her horse, sending the mare down with a scream of equine fear. Leaping from the saddle, she grabbed her bag and began to run, leaving Nightfyre where she was; she was pretty sure the mare hadn't been injured too badly, and her father would no doubt hire a healer to attend to it. Gods forbid one of his beloved horses get injured--she often thought he loved them more than he loved his daughters.

The important thing was to get away from the castle, away from Rosa and hopefully out of range of her sorcery. Terlet was a day's ride away on horseback, but it shouldn't be that much further on foot--she would have to camp out, but that was about it.

There were some important things she had forgotten, but soon found out. First of all, she was entirely unused to walking this much; she'd barely been walking a half a candlemark and her feet were aching almost unbearably. Second of all, she hadn't brought anything for camping out--not a tent, not even a few blankets to make a bed on the ground. Third, she hadn't thought to bring a map--something she began to regret almost as soon as she entered the forest outside the castle.

She was certain she'd passed that same tree five minutes ago. Sighing, she plopped down on the ground and opened her bag, pulling out the mirror from within. "I don't suppose you know your way around this forest?" she asked without preamble.

Rayden snorted. "I've been to Torlemont once and only once, dear Princess. We've got a snowball's chance in hell of finding our way out of here."

"Isn't moss always supposed to grow on the north side of a tree?" She stared at the tree in front of her, which unhelpfully seemed to have grown moss on all four sides.

"It's supposed to, yes, but that doesn't mean it does."

"You're a real big help," she muttered. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her, and she didn't like it very much. "Do you think my sister will send someone after us?"

"Wouldn't surprise me. I'm sure you've managed to royally piss her off by now."

"Great." Sighing, she brushed a strand of hair off her forehead. "I'm lost in the forest with no map, no company but a smartass in a mirror, and the sun is starting to set and I don't have a lantern." Unable to repress a shudder, she added, "And I'm afraid of the dark."

Rayden sniggered, but tried to disguise it as a cough. "It's not funny," she informed him tartly, then shoved him back into her bag. Rising, she did her best to ignore her aching feet and continue walking in a half-hearted attempt to find her way out of here before the sun set and she could no longer see.

She seemed to have made no progress whatsoever (except to have passed the same tree twice more) by the time the sun set. She stood frozen for a moment when she realized how dark it was, shivers rippling across her skin as a cold breeze began to blow. At last she managed to open her bag and pull out her cloak, sitting down on the forest floor and draping it over her as a blanket.

Unable to sleep, she lay there with eyes wide open, staring out into the darkness.

Rosa strode out to the stables, seething inside. How _dare_ that little bitch run off like that--and not only that, but she'd taken the mirror with Rayden in it, as well!

She had to get that mirror back. She _had_ to.

She also wanted her sister taken care of, for good. Already mad at Snow for stealing her lover, the fight last night had been the last straw--plus discovering that she'd run off with the mirror, of course. It was time to take her revenge, once and for all.

Jon was out in the stables, grooming one of her father's horses. He glanced up at the sound of her footsteps, then went back to his job, totally ignoring her as he usually did.

"Jon." She eased a little bit of sorcery into her voice, making sure he would look up. When he did, she smiled, winding a spell of coercion around her voice. "I want you to do something for me."

"What?" he mumbled, unable to look away.

Stepping forward, she opened the stall door and eased inside, pressing their bodies together and holding his gaze with her own. "My sister has run away. I want you to go and find her."

"And bring her back here?" His voice was slurred, as though he was drunk--an unfortunate side effect of the spell.

"No. She has a mirror with her--silver, with an opal in the handle. Take it, and bring it back to me. Kill Snow."

"Kill Snow? But--" He struggled, fighting to move his gaze away from hers and break free of her spell. "I don't...want to...Snow is my friend--"

"I don't care what you want." Easing more power into her voice, she frowned as he continued to resist, and at last slammed him with the full force of her sorcery. "Find Snow. Kill her. Bring me the mirror."

"Yes, ma'am," he murmured, eyes slightly glazed over.

"Very good." She smiled at him. "Oh--just to be sure that you really _did_ kill her, bring me back her heart as well."

Snow woke up all at once, heart pounding in her chest. The forest around her was completely pitch black; she couldn't have seen her hand in front of her face. Darkness pressed in around her, holding her immobilized by her fear.

It was then that she heard again the sound that had woken her up; fallen autumn leaves, crackling under the weight of someone's feet.

She froze, holding her makeshift blanket close to her chest as though it would protect her. Rayden had agreed that her sister would probably send someone after them; could that possibly be who she was hearing?

Making herself sit up, she grabbed her bag. She might have forgotten a few other travel necessities, but she wasn't stupid enough to have left without carrying some sort of weapon; there was a small knife tucked into a side pocket. Not like she really had any idea how to use it, but hopefully common sense would serve her well enough, and it was better than nothing.

It was this knife that she grabbed, glancing about in a vain effort to catch a glimpse of whoever's footsteps she might be hearing. As dark as it was, she couldn't see a thing; the footsteps did at least seem to be pretty far off, though, so maybe she would have time to get away before they reached her--

Someone stepped heavily, right in front of her. She screamed without meaning to, and as the footsteps from farther off stopped she slapped a hand over her mouth; _Stupid! Now whoever that is knows exactly where you are!_

The source of the footstep in front of her growled, low in its throat. Snow could feel the hair raise on the back of her neck. It was definitely some sort of an animal; probably large. Holding her knife and cloak close to her chest, she tried to back up and ran straight into a tree.

Abruptly, a cloud moved off the moon, spreading the forest with barely enough light to see by. The light was gone almost as quickly as it came, but it was enough for Snow to get a good glimpse of the creature in front of her. It was one of the large cats from the mountains; deadly hunters, and quite capable of taking down a full-grown man. They were said to be all but impossible to defeat, and although they rarely wandered as far south from the mountains as Torlemont, it did--obviously--happen occasionally.

Grabbing her cloak and her bag in one hand, she left the other free to hold the knife and began to run, never thinking that fleeing was the one thing she could do that was certain to make the giant cat give chase. Sure enough, it began to follow; as much as her feet already ached from the day's earlier hike, there was no way she could match its speed. It was gaining on her, it was on her heels, it was about to leap--

Someone practically ran into her, shoving her out of the way, and leapt towards the cat. There was a dim thud, a growl, and then a pained yell that made her pounding heart leap into her throat; then a scream of rage from the cat, and then silence.

Pressed back against the trunk of a tree, she sat with eyes wide open and heart pounding so loudly she was surprised the entire forest couldn't hear it, waiting for something else to happen. There was nothing but the sound of crickets chirping in the woods; the darkness began to press in around her again, holding her absolutely still, for gods only knew what might be hiding out there in the dimness where she couldn't see--

She screamed again, as a face suddenly floated into her view. The man grabbed her wrist, preventing her from fleeing. "Shh!" he urged her. "Do you want the whole damn forest to hear you?"

Panting slightly from fright and exertion, she managed to recognize who it was. It was Jon; stablehand and one of her sister's many jilted lovers, who'd become her friend after he and Rosa had split up. He held a lantern in one hand, which was what served to illuminate his face.

"Jon," she managed to get out. "What are you doing here?"

"Your sister--sent me here." He seemed to be struggling to get the words out, as though something was holding him back. "I'm supposed to--supposed to--" He looked at the bloodied knife in his hand as though he'd never seen it before, and shook his head. The next words came out in a rush. "I'm supposed to kill you and bring her back her mirror."

"Her mirror?" Involuntarily, her hand flew to rest on top of her bag.

"So you _do_ have it. Snow--what the _hell_ is going on?" The hand holding the knife raised as though he was about to stab her; he grabbed the wrist with his other hand and forced the knife back down to the ground.

Frightened by this odd behavior, she pushed as far back against the tree trunk as she could. "Rosa is crazy," she said flatly. "Prince Rayden is trapped in the mirror; she wants him back and she wants me dead because she thinks I slept with him while they were together."

He blinked, then began to curse fluently and inventively as his knife arm rose once more, and was once more forced to the ground. "Prince Rayden in a _mirror?_ What the hell?"

"It's true!" Opening her bag, she pulled out the mirror. "Rayden--come out here!" She shoved the mirror in Jon's face, knowing Rayden would appear within.

He blinked once, then twice. "Gods damn," he whispered reverently.

She couldn't see Rayden's face, but she could hear his reply. "Can't think of a better way to put it myself," he agreed wryly.

Jon looked back up at Snow, face haunted. "That must have been what she did to me," he whispered. "A spell--to _make_ me kill you, even if I didn't want to! I don't want to, Snow, I don't, but--" His knife hand rose once more. "Look at this shit! I can't stop myself!"

Panting heavily, he forced his hand down once more. "Snow--_run._ Run like hell and run like your life depends on it, because it does. I'll try not to chase you, but I can't guarantee anything--she told me to bring back your heart to prove I killed you, but I'll bring her back the heart of that cat instead. But--she told me to bring back the mirror too, so you _have_ to give me that."

"Fuck that!" was Rayden's snarled response. "I am _not_ going back to that gods damned bitch, not when I _finally_ have a chance to get away--"

"Please, Snow," Jon whispered, eyes begging her to hand over the mirror. "I don't want to, but I don't want her to kill me either. Please."

She looked down at Rayden, who was glaring at her in a way that said quite clearly, _Send me back to that bitch and if I ever get out of this mirror I'll kick your ass to hell and back_, then back up at Jon, whose pleading she couldn't ignore. She couldn't wait around all day to make a decision, either; even as she thought, Jon had to force the knife to stay put once more.

"Hurry up, Snow!" he forced out through gritted teeth. "I don't think I can--stop myself--much longer--"

Reaching into her bag, her hand closed around the handle of _her_ mirror. It was identical in every way to the one Rayden was imprisoned in; the two mirrors had been thirteenth birthday gifts from their father. Grabbing her mirror, she flung it at Jon, then tossed Rayden back into her bag and climbed to her feet.

Jon barely managed to catch the mirror. "Go!" he yelled at her, throwing her the lantern, which she caught and (amazingly enough) didn't drop. "Get the hell out of here!"

She obeyed willingly enough, running as fast as her feet could carry her. Jon began to chase her at first, but evidently his will was enough to overrule Rosa's spell; he stopped after she'd run barely more than a few feet, but Snow kept running blindly into the night, wanting nothing more than to get as far away from Torlemont castle as possible.

Her already tired feet couldn't carry her forever. Eventually she stopped and fell against the base of a tree, gasping for breath and soaked in sweat. She had to sit back up almost at once when she realized she'd sat in a bed of ants; swearing in frustration, she hopped around for a few minutes brushing the little black creatures off her. Once she was clean of them and her skin had mostly stopped crawling, she picked up her bag and started walking again, this time in search of a half-decent place to camp out.

__

Too bad this isn't an adventure novel, she found herself thinking as she trudged along. _If it was, I'd stumble into a clearing with a pleasant little cottage, and there would be a nice old woman living there who would be more than glad to share her lodgings with me--it would probably happen right about now, when I'm ready to give up--_

Looking up, she had to fight to keep her jaw from dropping as she realized that she stood in front of a small house in the center of the forest. It wasn't in a clearing, and it was a bit larger than the pleasant little cottage she'd been imagining, and gods only knew who might live there--but it was shelter, and that was all that mattered at the moment.

Stumbling forward, she knocked on the door and waited. There was no answer, so she tried opening the door. To her surprise, it wasn't locked; stepping inside, she found herself in the middle of a rather large living room.

There was a door off to one side, and a set of stairs to the right. Curiosity winning out over exhaustion, instead of collapsing asleep on the couch, she walked through the door.

This was evidently the kitchen. There was a large table in the middle, with seven chairs surrounding it, and a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. Another door led to an indoor privy; that seemed to be much the extent of the first floor.

Climbing up the stairs, she found herself in a hallway with seven doors. Each was marked with an engraved wooden symbol; walking down the hall, she examined each of them. A flame; a snowflake; a tornado; a boulder; a sun; a moon; and then at the door at the end of the hallway, a star. Pushing open the door marked with a star, she found herself in the empty master bedroom, furnished with nothing but a large four-poster bed and a dresser. At the sight of the bed, her exhaustion returned, and she dropped her bag beside the bed and collapsed into it, not even bothering to pull up the covers or even remove her shoes.

A/N: Yes, we DO finally get to meet the not-dwarves in the next chapter. Yayers and all that. Anyway, I'll have the next chapter up soon--and I really mean it this time! Really! -hides under her desk-


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